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Molasses Candy

Molasses candy is a sweet made from molasses, sugar, vinegar, butter, and baking soda, boiled until hard.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Molasses and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,225 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Molasses Candy

Ingredients

Directions

Make the candy

  1. Dissolve the sugar in the vinegar.

  2. Mix the sugar-vinegar mixture with the molasses and boil, stirring frequently until it hardens when dropped into cold water.

  3. Stir in the butter and baking soda (dissolved in hot water).

Finish and pull

  1. Flavor to your taste, give one hard final stir, and pour into buttered dishes.

  2. While still hot, pull into sticks using only the buttered tips of your fingers.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Molasses + sugartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Sugar + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Molasses
Provides the dark color, rich flavor and chewy body of the candy.
Sugar
Dissolves and cooks into the candy, adding sweetness and helping it set firm.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that helps prevent sugar from crystallizing, keeping the candy smooth.
Baking soda
Reacts with the acid to release gas, lightening the candy's texture.
Butter
Adds fat for a tender texture and a richer mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Boil until it hardens in cold water. The candy must reach the hard-crack stage so it sets firm when cooled. Stopping early leaves it sticky, while overcooking makes it brittle and bitter.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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